Off to the zoo. Again.

Last weekend, we braved the impending thunderstorms (which never happened) and headed to the zoo with Jayme and Adam. We all got ride bracelets through Will's work, so the kids had a blast on the train, the boat, and the carousel. The most impressive thing, though, was to see the polar bears swimming right above our heads. Here he is, just after thoroughly scratching his rear end.



Starting the day in jeans. By the end of the day, I wished we had looked more closely at the weather report.



The souvenir cups were huge.



Gabriella held on tight during the boat ride.

Mother's Day with Grandma and Grandpap

We headed over to Will's parents' house for a long weekend, and again the kids had a blast with their grandparents. Graham had a checklist of things he wanted to do, and he accomplished all of them.

First things first: riding the tractor with Grandpap. Graham insisted on steering and learned how to crank up the throttle when nobody was looking.


Graham, Daddy, Grandpap, and cousin Nathan went fishing and caught four trout.


Next on the list: visiting the barn with cousins. Chase loved Emily's puppy.




Chase and Isaac enjoyed some tractor tipping.


We got to see Isabella for the first time in a year. Here she is hanging out with Aunt Kim.


We also got to meet little Audrey and play with Logan. All in all, it was a great weekend!

Easter with Grammie and Grandpa

This year, we spent Easter getting a sugar high at my parents' house. It was an action-packed weekend and the kids had a blast--we had a picnic, met up with an old friend, had an Easter egg hunt, dyed eggs, and looked at farm equipment. What else could a 3-year-old heart desire?

Playing in the giant cardboard shantytown with Grandpa:



Standing inside a giant tractor wheel:



Riding a bale of miscanthus grass. It was huge.



Doing Easter-y things.






And finally, the obligatory Easter picture before church. It was tough getting even one.

I can't hear you.

Graham came into the kitchen yesterday looking like this:



I couldn't figure out what he was doing until I looked a little closer. He had folded his ears closed.



He said, "I make it quiet in here."

The many faces of...

Aunt Kim got a new camera and needed to practice with it. She found many subjects--some willing and some not so willing, some photogenic and some not-so-much. Let's just say that she found the 'ham' in Graham.






We also went to the Great Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday. Unfortunately, due to the weather, there was no hunting involved. In fact, there weren't really a lot of eggs, either. Oh well. The kids enjoyed decorating their cookies.

Smithy Tidbits

These kids of ours are, as Mater says, more fun than a tornado in a trailer park.

I am convinced Gabriella loves her blanket more than she loves her parents and apple juice combined. When we put her in her crib, she always does exactly the same thing: she paws through her blanket until she finds a corner, then inserts her finger into the seam. She puts the blanket up to her nose and breathes through it while sucking her tongue. It is bizarre. And evidently she also likes to sleep with her feet propped up.



Chase is moving into a big boy toddler bed tonight. It was just a hand-me-down, but he danced around it singing "Race car bed! Race car bed!" and insisted on eating his snack inside its barren walls. He was ecstatic--that is, until I started dismantling his crib, at which point he began sobbing. He wants to have his fruit snacks and eat them too.



Graham is such a helper in the kitchen. Actually, make that a distraction. Anyway, he likes to watch the breadmaker work (can't blame him, sometimes I do the same thing).



He is also going through some irrational fear phase. I sent this email to my grandma a few days ago:

"Graham has been very worried about tornadoes lately, and yesterday when it was very windy, he was sobbing outside because he was afraid he would blow away. I think it's because Piglet blows away on Winnie the Pooh (who knew that would be a scary movie?). I couldn't convince him that he wouldn't blow away, so finally I said, "Graham, if you blow away, I will run and catch you!" Then he REALLY started crying because I guess I just confirmed his fears that he might, possibly, blow away. We went inside after that."

Speaking of irrational fears, this gigantic spider was on our front window. Luckily for the spider, it was on the outside. I found it fascinating, especially when I noticed that it only has 7 legs.

Any Given Sunday

Graham likes to look at birds. He is learning to identify them by sight, but we recently got a book from the library that plays their songs. Now he can sing "conk-a-ree" with a red-winged blackbird and "who cooks for you?" with the barred owl. This is all well and good (even encouraged!) until it starts interfering with my sleep.

Yesterday morning at 6:45am, we heard Graham's pounding footsteps. A frenzied clutching and opening of the doorknob. More pounding footsteps. Then a frantically loud whisper, strong enough to blow the shingles off the roof:

"I hear a birdie singing in my ear, and I don't know what it is!"

Later, as he walked through the garage to get in the van for church, he stepped outside long enough to yell, "Bob White? Bob White!" I'm sure the people next door think we have a new neighbor named Robert.

Chase, on the other hand, finds quieter ways to express himself. We put the boys down last night and when I went to check on them, Chase was standing up, staring at the wall. When I looked more closely, I saw that he was actually using his hands to make shadow puppets.